Any reference to CASACIR or its directors, shareholders, owners or operators relates to pre-14 February 2024 when the company was sold. In no way can anything said relate to the company or its new owners, operators, directors, and shareholders after that sale.
Looking for the clean, clear air of the country? Looking to have a property where you can relax and get away from it all? Looking for peace and quiet? Looking forward to having cattle graze by the side of the permanent waterway which tinkles over the rocks and runs through your property? Thinking of retiring to live in such an ideal location in the Baw Baw Shire municipality, and making it “home”? I would suggest that you think again.
If you are just a regular person trying to operate a farm then your productivity, property value, amenity and income would appear to be of very little importance to council and can easily and readily sacrificed you and your legislated rights to the benefit of big business, if there is a land use conflict. It will possibly not matter if you were there first, it will possibly not matter if the distance between you and them is significantly less than that set by EPA as the expectation. It will possibly not matter what you say or what you do – you may well lose. This has been our experience. In fact, one of the council planning officers, Peter McWhinney (McWhinney), said (in a report dated 11 June 2008, dealing with an application for the Neerim North quarry) [emphasis mine] “Deciding Factors – A decision on the application should result from the weighing up of these respective and conflicting issues, their degrees of severity and benefit. ” This is in spite of having quoted from the planning scheme and noting the requirement of the protection and enhancement of amenity for residents!
In fact, McWhinney acknowledged how wonderful our property was (in his report of 11 June 2008) by saying [emphasis mine]: “The current sense of place could be described as almost “the edge of the world” conceptually, with a combination of being the end of the road and quite isolated, in an elevated topographical position with the landform to the south dropping away dramatically to foster this sensation”, “… the associated quietness and scenic qualities of the location… is an attribute that is very marked in the location and likely to have been a significant factor in any lifestyle purchase choice” and “…it is understandable that people have chosen to live in this location substantially as a lifestyle choice taking advantage of the idyllic landscape attributes”, but he then noted that the impacts on us would be great and extensive: “Extractive industry has the potential to dramatically impact upon these [quietness and scenic qualities]. It is the physical removal of rock from the ground potentially changing the landscape, involving blasting, large quarry trucks on roads, noise, vibration, dust, fly rock, pollution issues, safety issues and so on, all on a large scale”, “The amenity of persons resident in proximity to the quarry will clearly be detrimentally affected by the quarrywith this impact going to be present in all likelihood for a considerable period of time”, “…the introduction of a large scale quarry will largely destroy [the quietness and scenic qualities of the location]”, “The quarry, in all likelihood will be operating for decades which contributes to the significance of council’s decision. This is long term impact if it goes ahead”, “… it is accepted that a quarry would significantly detract from their lifestyle and residential amenity…”, and “The quarry will clearly result in land use conflicts.” So, acknowledging the quality of the lifestyle and the severity of the impacts, McWhinney recommended the quarry proceed, and council accepted his recommendation and therefore deliberately inflicted the predicted impacts upon us.
In addition, on the one hand we have an “as-of-right” to have a bed and breakfast enterprise, and to operate our land for agricultural purposes, and CASACIR did not have an “as-of-right” to quarry the land, we could not have our enterprises while CASACIR could have theirs.
So we suffered the reality of the predicted “severity” of the impacts, and those impacts only increased: the loss of amenity, loss of land value, loss of the natural flow of the watercourse (our water supply), loss of quality drinking water, loss of safety, and the continued provision of dust, excessive and nuisance noise, drinking water contaminated by dust, watercourses contaminated by dust and other pollutants, poor roads, and the like. These, however, are deemed by council to be of much lesser consequence than the “benefit” to council and CASACIR.
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